Tech-support Hall of Shame

[Aaron]

> Or web dev jobs that want a degree. I mean honestly how does a degree help
> you in web development? I've worked at a couple different colleges and
> answer questions for people from a lot more and none of them seem to have
> very good web dev classes. I've even seen web ev jobs that required
> masters degrees. That just drives me nuts.

I know.  With the current market though, employers can be pickier.  You have
to remember that most of the other jobs in a company at the same level are
filled by people with college degrees.  How many accountants do you think a
company hires who don't have degrees?

Here are a couple pieces of advise for those of you on the job hunt:

    1.  Go back to school.  If you don't have a degree, get one.  Lots of
schools offer evening and weekend classes.  Once you have the degree you
have it.  How hard do you think a company looks at when the degree was
obtained.  Someone with a 20 year old Computer Science degree will beat you
out for a Java job because they have a degree that isn't even relevant
anymore.... but they still have the degree.

    2.  Don't be overqualified.....  If you're loosing jobs because your
overqualified, scale down the resume.  Only list what the job requires plus
maybe just a tab bit more.  In the interview you might want to hint at or
outright expand your knowledge base to the interviewer.

    3.  Change.  Move to a niche that's a little more in demand.  The nice
thing about the IT industry is that the people in it are usually flexible.
Maybe you've been working as a Systems Engineer for the last 5 years but you
can't find a job as one now.  If you have programming skills, maybe that's
what you should look at if the jobs are available.

Anyway...  My opinion, take it for what it's worth.

Aaron